Tom Ribbecke was born in Brookyln, New York. He attended NYU Syracuse University Newhouse School of Communications and earned a BFA in Music and a BA in communications. He relocated to San Francisco in the early 70’s and opened his first lutherie shop in the Mission district. He is one of the premier archtop builders in the world, with a considerable waiting list and many different models of guitars and basses employing carved top and back technology. He has a reputation for creating instruments that perfectly suit his clients needs.

In 2003, Tom invented the Halfling guitar. The patented design is a unique blend of the steel string acoustic guitar and the archtop guitar that offers versatility, enhanced bass response and feedback suppression not found in any other archtop guitar. As one would expect these are superior instruments which have no compromises in playability, quality, craftsmanship and tone.

There are now two distinctly separate entities Ribbecke Guitar Corporation (RGC) which produces the Halfling guitar and Halfling bass and Ribbecke Guitars, Tom’s private practice where he continues to hand-craft truly exceptional museum quality archtops of exquisite design for which he is world famous.